


to love something small

by jakia



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Development, Character Study, Essek's POV, Gen, M/M, ambiguous ending, long road to redemption, neglectful/borderline abusive parenting in flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23297335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jakia/pseuds/jakia
Summary: It’s foolish to love something you are going to outlive. Essek is far too intelligent for that.And yet. And yet.[Essek, the Mighty Nein, and the slow road to redemption. Mostly gen + Shadowgast]
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast, Jester Lavorre & Essek Thelyss, The Mighty Nein & Essek Thelyss
Comments: 43
Kudos: 492





	to love something small

**Author's Note:**

> A few things of note:
> 
> \- This story is told non-linearly/out of order/not chronologically. My betas tell me it makes sense still, so hopefully you are able to follow along still, but I thought a warning still might help.
> 
> \- The ending is intentionally left ambiguous, so that you can draw your own conclusion for what happens next
> 
> \- I love Essek Thelyss so much, you guys. 😭😭😭 Hiatuses, man!
> 
> A great many thanks to my betas, LadyOrpheus and executive_gay for taking a looksies at it for me. Also shout out to the Essek Discord Channel, aka the greatest place on the internet. Love you guys.

_And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes_

_Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me._

Sylvia Plath, _Tulips_

* * *

  
  
  


The meeting is dreadfully boring, and then, suddenly, it isn’t. There are strangers in the Queen’s court--two humans in slave leathers, a half-orc, a tiefling with a bright pink backpack, a firbolg, a goblin with a crossbow, a fallen aasimar--and they are doing a, quite frankly, terrible job of defending themself, justifying their presence to the Queen. Essek yawns half-heartedly, expecting to watch an execution, when one of the humans pulls a Beacon out of the tiefling’s backpack, and suddenly things get very interesting indeed.

(Months ago, a conversation with Ludinus: “My people do not have the Beacon.”

“Neither do mine.”

“Then where the _fuck_ did the Beacon go? How do _two nations_ lose a priceless artifact?”)

And there it is, in front of him, in the hands of an unwashed human with long, stringy hair. The human gives an impassioned speech about having no love for the Empire, and Essek rolls his eyes because it’s a _lie_ , a damned lie, he is trying to save his own skin. But it’s clever, and it works, and Essek has to admire the showmanship of it, of how this ragtag group delays their execution by being declared the Heroes of the Dynasty by the Queen, and all eyes are on them, now.

Including Essek’s, though for different reasons than most.

_There’s the fucking Beacon_ , he thinks, biting at his tongue. Four months, he and the most brilliant minds of the Cerberus Assembly have been looking for this Beacon, not counting the majority of the Dynasty’s resources, and _no one_ has been able to find it. And here it is, in the hands of the oddest group of mercenaries Essek’s ever seen.

Well played, he thinks, unable to keep the grin off his face. A part of him should be annoyed that the Beacon has been returned to the Dynasty--he stole it for the Assembly for a _reason_ , after all--but he is too intrigued by the sudden presence of a third player on the board to mind much. It’s like playing a game of chess your entire life, only to suddenly find out that instead of a black team and a white team, there’s been a third team on the board this entire time, a different color entirely, and you’ve never realized it until now. A prodigy often bored by life cannot help but be tickled by the prospect of an unfamiliar challenge.

_I will have to keep my eye on you,_ Essek thinks, watching the red haired one hand the Beacon to his Queen.

* * *

His Queen asks for volunteers from her council, someone to work as a liaison for these mysterious strangers, and he surprises everyone by volunteering. 

Essek, generally, as a rule, never volunteers for things like this, so he understands the shocked look on everyone’s faces. 

But he makes the most sense, he argues. It’s only logical: he is young, and less intimidating than, say, an ancient goblin, or a bugbear, or the Queen’s wife and high general. The strangers will likely see him as closer to a peer than a supervisor, which will help him learn their true intentions. After all, as a Shadowhand, is his goal not the furtherment of knowledge within the Dynasty? Who better to learn more about these strangers who found and returned a Beacon other than him?

The Queen agrees, and the assignment is his, and Essek has no idea how much he’s just changed the course of his life, by volunteering to escort the esoteric group known as the Mighty Nein. 

* * *

They returned the Beacon out of love, he learns.

Not a love for the Dynasty. Not a love for the Empire, either. But for the love a goblin has for her halfling husband, it seems, and that’s the strangest love at all, something beyond Essek’s comprehension.

It’s so stupid, he thinks, arrogant in his own intelligence, watching as the goblin disguises herself as a halfling, then reveals and explains herself to the captured man. They could have ransomed the Beacon back to the highest bidder. They could have lived like kings and emperors, been given every material wealth and creature comfort imaginable, and instead they traded it away for _this_. A conversation in a dark prison cell, and the hope that Essek might be merciful. 

That is not a bet Essek would take, personally.

Still, he learns something from their conversation, things the Cerberus Assembly hasn’t told him yet, either because they haven’t had the time or the opportunity, or worse, that they weren’t going to tell him at _all_ , and that advantage alone is worth being merciful and letting the halfling go free.

(He, decidedly, does not think about himself in this exact situation. How, if he were kidnapped by the other side and left to rot in a dungeon, no one would come for him. He does not think about how a poor alchemist from a shitty village in the Empire is more loved than he is. Such thinking would be redundant, and worthless, and what has love ever once accomplished, anyway? Knowledge and power are more important.)

Still, he lets the halfling go, and the Mighty Nein thank him profusely, and he tells himself that the warmth he feels means nothing, really, and the fact that he’s laughed and smiled more genuinely in these few moments he’s spent with this group than he has in months doesn’t even cross his mind. 

(But it will, later, when he stands outside the house he bought them holding a bottle of wine, arguing with himself over whether or not to knock on the door.)

* * *

He leaves them at the inn, and then he doesn’t think about them at all.

* * *

Except that he does.

“We should buy a house for the Mighty Nein,” he tells his mother. Their den has a monthly meeting slash dinner, and as Shadowhand, he has a place at his mother’s side. His mother is an _umavi_ , a perfect soul, and even in private he does not think of her as _mother_ so much as a powerful piece to manipulate on his chessboard. 

A bishop, his mother is. Not a queen, although he knows she has ambitions. 

It is, after all, a thing he inherited from her.

Still, she hesitates, setting her silverware to the side of her plate, a gentle clashing sound of fine silver against porcelain. “A house? Whatever for, Essek?”

“They returned the Beacon to us,” a Beacon Essek _stole_ , of course, but no one needs to know that. “By giving them a, ah, permanent base, as it were, we of Den Thelyss would show our gratitude to them.”

“Such an act would likely please the Bright Queen,” his mother muses, catching on quickly to Essek’s plans. Further down the table from them, Verin rolls his eyes, which Essek intently ignores. “And a permanent home would make them easier to track and follow. Very good, Essek.”

Her praise means nothing, of course, not any more, even though he spent years fighting and clawing and begging with his brother and sister for even the slightest hint of her affection. It’s strange, being grown, and how the things that used to matter so much now matter so little.

Still, he bows his head respectfully. “I will start making arrangements immediately,” he says to her, and then says nothing else for the entire meal.

* * *

He picks out a house for them that’s not far from his own.

It can’t be directly next door, of course. They are Heroes of the Dynasty, but they are not of Den Thelyss and have not earned the power and the prestige that brings. Still, Essek selects a large house in the Firmaments, within walking distance from his own abode, one with plenty of rooms, so that each member of the Mighty Nein may have a room and some privacy, if they’d like. With his mother’s line of credit, he secures the basics in furnishings.

He worries, a little bit, that they might find the abode too small or insulting, but then he remembers that they are staying at the _Dim’s Inn_ , and that when he saw them for the first time, two of them were dressed like slaves, and he worries less.

  
They _love_ it. They pester him with questions--about the Dynasty, about the house, about his culture--but overall they seem amazed at his den’s generosity.

(They are so _stupid_ ; do they not see that this is a trap? Do they not realize this gift is just a way for him to keep track of them?)

As he tries to leave them at the house, the tiefling hugs him.

“Thank you,” she says, and squeezes him tightly.

(“Essek, I think that you are very handsome, and you seem like a really cool guy, and I hope we can be friends and stuff,” she told him before, and he mostly ignored her. She wasn’t lying, he thinks now, her arms wrapped around him tightly for an awkward amount of time. He doesn’t know what to do with friends; he’s never had them before, but the contact is warm, and, he thinks privately, strangely welcomed.)

* * *

At home, alone, later in the bath and the quiet of the dark, he tries to think about the last time someone touched him intentionally.

It can’t have been that long ago, surely, but even his brilliant mind can’t recall anything within the last month, at least. There are hands that have brushed as papers have been exchanged, shoulders nudged together in crowded spaces, but something _intentional?_ On purpose? Like the hug the tiefling gave him earlier?

Eventually, he arrives at an answer: two months ago, he and Verin had argued, and Verin had grabbed his shoulders out of anger to make a point, and Essek had snapped at him “Don’t _touch_ me,” and Verin let go.

Was that _really_ the last time someone touched him intentionally?

(And before that?)

A handshake with his Cerberus Assembly contact, after they agreed to both continue to use their resources to look for the stolen Beacon.

(Before that?)

A hand on his shoulder from High General Quana, telling him he did good after he delivered news from the war front that his spies had learned. 

(Before that?)

A kiss on the cheek from his mother, over a year ago.

(Before that?)

A fling with a gentleman from a rival den, that he used primarily to get information. He doesn’t even remember the young man’s name, only that the sex had been satisfactory, and he’d gotten what he wanted out of the arrangement.

He’s not been touched often in his life. He sinks into the cold bath water, and tries not to think about warmth.

* * *

  
  


It’s foolish to love something you know you are going to outlive.

He remembers being a child--a _very_ young child--before Verin was born, he thinks, or perhaps just after. He had been out with his parents and his sister, and they came across a vendor selling these magical creatures. He doesn’t recall what the creature is called--but it was like a rabbit, but bigger, with longer ears and a fluffy coat and the ability to teleport, not unlike a blink dog. And Essek had wanted one more than anything in the world, and he _begged_ his parents to get him one, oh please, oh please.

His mother hadn’t wanted to; his father, however, said it would be a good lesson. “Teach him responsibility,” his father said. Essek remembers this distinctly, because it’s one of the only times he can remember in his childhood that his mother ever caved in to his father’s wishes. 

He remembers his sister rolling her eyes at him, annoyed at him already over nothing. Back then, she’d been his mother’s favorite child instead of him, before anyone knew or realized how smart he really was.

So Essek went home, the proud owner of a giant white magical rabbit. He named it Sel’tur, because it was so soft to touch. He did everything he could to take care of Sel’tur--he read every book he could get his hands on about the creature, he fed and watered it according to the instructions, played with it, taught it the command word needed to teleport on command--

And Sel’tur died, three weeks later.

He’d been devastated. He thinks, now that he’s older, that his mother or sister must have poisoned the rabbit, that they must have found his enthusiasm and love for the rabbit tedious, and devised a way to get rid of it, because it was a perfectly healthy creature who should have lived a very long and healthy life. 

He’d cried over it, sobbed big hearty tears and wailed loudly over it, enough that it gathered his mother’s attention. He remembers distantly the smell of her perfume and the sound her heels made walking across the stone floor of his childhood home. He remembers her earrings being gold and half-moon shaped, and he remembers how she did not touch him, not once. He remembers how his mother knelt before him, so she could look at him in the eyes as she spoke.

“Let this be a lesson for you, Essek,” she told him. “It’s foolish to love something you are going to outlive, because all it does is bring you more pain and suffering down the road.”

He never did own a pet again, not even a familiar which would live as long as he did.

He thinks about his mother’s words now as he sits across from the Mighty Nein’s wizard, watching as he copies his first dunamantic spell into his own spellbook. Humans live such short, sad, miserable little lives, and whoever this Caleb Widogast is, he’s certainly experienced more misery than most. It feels something like a waste, teaching him dunamancy; he won’t live long enough to really _do_ much with it, and yet--

And _yet._

He’s so enthusiastic about it, dutifully copying line by line of the spell, in spite of the tedious nature of copying. His enthusiasm is familiar; he just wants to _know_ , to understand the alien and the foreign, to want to _know_ for the sake of _knowing_.

Perhaps he is projecting a bit. But if this is a waste, then who does it hurt, really? It is a small kindness, and he is finding out quickly that, when it comes to the Mighty Nein, he has more kindness in him to give than he thought possible. 

The fact that the wizard is easy on the eyes, handsome in his new coat, and clean-shaven, is, well, _hmm_.

Essek does not find most people attractive. He wonders, sometimes, if there is something broken in him, that he doesn’t experience attraction the way so many others do. He’s heard people talking, of course, his brother and sister mostly, or guards he’s overheard conversing--and knows he’s not normal. For him, he can appreciate the aesthetics of a person, but very rarely does he feel an impulse to act on such a feeling. For him, sex is a biological necessity, a side effect of mortal need, not a desire to pursue.

He stares at the wizard across from him, and thinks that he’d be willing to sleep with Caleb Widogast.

Because he has a pretty face. Because of their shared interest in the arcane. Because having something he could use to manipulate at least one member of the Mighty Nein would be useful. Because it would be nice, to touch and be touched in return. 

Because Caleb looks so _warm_ , and he’s felt so cold, recently.

He opens his mouth, intent on propositioning him, but the other wizard moves faster, closing his spellbook and turning to him with a question about dunamantic practices, and the idea is _gone_ , a feather lost to a breeze as his thoughts are enraptured instead by talks of magic with a mind as brilliant as his own. 

* * *

“I’m in love with you,” Essek will say to Caleb, many months later, the first time Essek can recall ever saying those words to someone in his life.

Caleb’s jaw will drop, and he won’t say anything at all--the timing of this is _terrible_ \--but once Essek starts talking he finds it difficult to stop, and he knows he won’t have another opportunity otherwise.

“I know you don’t love me back,” Essek says before Caleb can respond. “And that’s fine. I’ve come to terms with it. I wouldn’t expect you to, given everything I’ve done. But I’ve already had to bare my soul today, to my country, to my betters, my queen, telling more truths than I ever thought possible in my darkest days, I thought, well, what’s one more?” He laughs, but the laugh is fake, the kind of laugh that comes from nerves and adrenaline.

“Essek--”

“I could not die without telling you the truth,” Essek says plainly. He places his hand on Caleb’s cheek, and holds his face tenderly. “I’m in love with you, in a way I did not think was possible. In all my 120 years of life, all it took was a few measly months with you and your-- _loveable_ group of assholes to turn my entire world upside down. Now look at me,” he holds up the bindings on his wrists. “I’m willing to die for a cause.”

Caleb opens his mouth to speak, but Essek stops him.

“I know you don’t think much of yourself, that you think you are beyond redemption. But you need to know, before I die, that the good you did, the _impact_ you made on my life, however short of a time it might have been, was good. It was worth it. You made me a better person, helped me find my _soul_ , and whatever crime you think you’ve done--you’ve more than made up for it, in the difference you have made in me.”

He steals a kiss, a soft and gentle goodbye, barely more than a press of the lips. 

And then he is dragged away to his execution, content enough to know that he told Caleb the truth, and that his last words and thoughts went towards the man he loves.

Essek does, in fact, die that day. But it doesn’t stick. The Mighty Nein’s will, he’s learned, topples that of empires and queens, and they wanted him to live, and so he lives.

He comes back to life with his head in Caleb’s lap, the man he loves holding the side of his head tenderly. There are tears streaming down the red head’s face--an ugly sort of cry, blotchy and snotty and not at all attractive--but he is, Essek thinks, the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Beside him, Jester is also crying, and holding his hand, her grip so strong he can barely feel his fingers. Beau holds his other hand, and Caduceus leans over and brushes the stray flecks of diamond dust still on his chest.

“Welcome back,” Veth tells him, the first voice he ever hears in his new life, and he thinks he’s never before been so warm.

* * *

“I have my own business to attend to,” he speaks publicly to the court, on the Mighty Nein’s behalf. “But I will vouch for their capabilities,” he sneaks a glance towards Caleb. “And my tutelage.” 

The Bright Queen nods, and the court continues as normal, and then the Mighty Nein are gone, heading towards the place where his father died, where his little brother is stationed.

He--he tries not to think about it.

Still, he’s not surprised at all when his mother pulls him aside, later. “There is no benefit for you to speak on their behalf,” she berates him, quick as always to point out his flaws and missteps.

It cost him _nothing_ to speak positively about them to the Queen. The effort required was _meaningless_ , and yet the potential positive for the Mighty Nein was absolute. What did a kind word cost him, besides his mother’s disappointment?

Yet a Thelyss does nothing that does not benefit himself in some way; hence, his mother’s disapproval.

He bows his head in acknowledgment, but doesn’t speak. She would not hear him, anyway. 

“Do better,” she tells him sharply, and then walks away.

His mother has outlived so many, he thinks. She must love nothing, because she's always going to outlive everything she comes in contact with--even her own children. He watches her leave, and wonders what his mother must have been like in her first life, and if the price of perfection means to always feel cold.

* * *

  
  


He is starting to think the Cerberus Assembly is stupid.

Assassins, _really?_ Who did they think that was going to help?

None come after Essek, of course, but he’s so annoyed and disgruntled about it, his workload suddenly tripled, that he barely notices the Mighty Nein are back, barely does more than tell them what’s happened and volunteer to teleport them without thinking much about it before he’s in another meeting, doing more paperwork, upping security measures, sending secret triple encoded messages trying to get _answers_ \--

But Caleb wants to talk to him. And Essek has--he wouldn’t call it a soft spot, he’d kill all of them if he had to, if they got in the way or interfered with his plans--but he has a--a _kind curiosity,_ towards the Mighty Nein. They are just so _interesting_ , so different and unexpected, flashes of color and loud personalities in a world that is mostly quiet and gray--that even when they thwart all his plans he finds he doesn’t mind too much, too intrigued by the mystery of what they’ll do next.

Caleb is distraught.

He’s trying to keep it together. But his voice is shaky, and he’s nervous, caught off-guard by what he’s learned, and he’s alone, looking to Essek for answers. He confesses to being like the assassin Essek has locked in the dungeon, of training to be a Scourager, of wanting to talk to this woman he was once like, if Essek could help in any way in letting Caleb speak to her, if he could delay the execution.

And Essek is--overwhelmed, if he’s being honest. Overwhelmed by the information (that Caleb used to work for the Assembly, and that makes everything so much better, and so much _worse_ ). Overwhelmed by the request (he doesn’t have that kind of power, to delay an execution. _Does he?_ ) But mostly he finds it is Caleb’s trust in him that is overwhelming, that Caleb, in his distraught state, came to _Essek_ for guidance, that he came to Essek for answers, that he entrusted _Essek_ with just a tiny piece of his guarded past. 

Essek does a shitty job of calming him down. He tells him that he will do what he can, but he can make no promises, because he can’t, because he doesn’t know for sure what all he can do. Caleb says he understands, and he’ll take up no more of Essek’s time, and then he’s gone, and Essek feels as though he’s just failed a test he didn’t know he was taking.

* * *

At night, alone in bed, he is unable to sleep, and so he replays the conversation in his head with Caleb over and over again.

The conclusion he keeps reaching is _why me?_ Why did _Caleb_ come to _me?_ He has other friends--surely the Mighty Nein would have been more of a comfort, could have had more answers that what Essek could provide? It’s not as though he is very close to Caleb.

Then again, Essek is not very close to anyone.

His bed feels strangely cold, and he struggles to sleep.

* * *

Months from now, on the lower deck of a ship, sitting on a shitty crate in the docks of Nicodranas, Essek will look at the Mighty Nein and say, “I have more allegiance to all of you than to anyone in the Dynasty or the Empire,” and he will _mean it,_ because there are no people on this planet that Essek loves more than the Mighty Nein.

In response, Caleb will kiss him on the forehead, even though he should hate Essek, because Essek has betrayed him in the worst way possible. “You were not born with venom in your veins,” he’ll say, even though Essek feels like he was, sometimes. His mother’s blood feels like venom, and Essek is just like her, in all the worst ways. “You _learned_ it. Perhaps we are both damned, but we can leave this world in a better place.”

Essek will cry.

He will try to talk to Jester: “If you show me a kindness--”

“We have done _nothing_ but show you kindness,” she’ll say, and he’ll feel more ashamed of himself than he ever has before in his life. 

Veth will say “You are a broken person who had ill-intentions and wandered aimlessly into a path that you had no idea how to complete, and yet somehow on the way you found a heart. You sound like _all of us_. Welcome to the Mighty Nein.”

It doesn’t feel like forgiveness, because it’s not, and it doesn’t feel like redemption, because it’s not, but it feels like _hope_ , a future, a fragment of possibility he didn’t know he could have, before.

* * *

  
  


The next time he speaks with the Mighty Nein, he’s not alone, and neither are the Nein.

The guards are a nuisance, but a necessary one. There’s a target on his back, his mother tells him. He’s one of the few members of the court that _didn’t_ have an assassination attempt by the Scouragers. It’s only a matter of time. 

The Mighty Nein also introduce him to their housekeeper, Dairon. A spy, he’s guessing, by the way they act around them. He will have to investigate upon his return.

He gets a destination from them, and takes them outside for the teleportation process. Teleportation...doesn’t actually call for physical contact, but _they_ don’t know that, and what does it hurt, this tiny bit of silliness? Who knows how long it will be for? So few people are ever willing to _touch_ him, and if he’s honest with himself, he craves it, sometimes, the physical contact, the connection of physicality between person and person. And the Mighty Nein are so free with their affections, so wild and different from anything else in the Dynasty, that Essek does not think they would ever begrudge him this, even if they did know. 

Caleb’s hand is warm in his, as is the goblin Nott’s, as they blink halfway across the world.

(“We’ll be in touch, while we are here,” Caleb tells him softly, before he teleports himself back home.

“Please do,” he says, and cannot stop the smile from showing on his face.)

* * *

Jester messages him frequently. The constant interruptions should be obnoxious, and yet--

“I will try,” he assures her, hoping she will relay the information to Caleb. He does not think about how her voice is the kindest one he hears, most days. 

* * *

Letting the Mighty Nein know he could teleport was a mistake.

“If it is of dire importance,” he says softly. “But my skills are not parlor tricks. Be mindful.”

Jester burns another spell slot, and messages him back immediately. He tries to ignore how warm her words make him feel. “No no no no, we don’t think that! You’re very powerful, and we just need your help! We don’t take it for granted!”

_But what’s in it for me?_ He hears his mother’s voice in his head, and he bites at his lip. His denmembers can ask him a simple favor and he’d balk at the request, but the Mighty Nein ask him to teleport them around the world and he does it for nothing.

_Because they are nice to you_ , he thinks, walking from the castle to the Mighty Nein’s abode. Because no one in your life is nice to you. Because Jester compliments him without wanting something in return, which no one ever does. Because he enjoys discussing magic with Caleb. Because they won’t just ask him why he floats everywhere, but they put ball bearings all in the foyer to see if he trips, a silly, pointless prank, like they would a friend. 

So he agrees to teleport them to a dragon’s lair, and he delays a Scourager’s execution for two weeks, pulling every shred of favor and goodwill he has ever earned from his mother, because it might make Caleb look less sad.

“Caleb doesn’t want to ask, but he found this paper,” the goblin Nott tells him. “It’s full of magic and wonder and secrets, and _you_ may be the key to unlocking it!”

“Also, I brought you a present!” Jester squeals. “It’s a cupcake!!!”

He doesn’t know how to respond. “Yay?” he says, floating the cupcake towards him. He sniffs it slightly, his nose overwhelmed with the flavor of black moss, and he puts it in his cloak to examine later. Still, the gesture _(_ _ha_ _)_ is appreciated, even if he doesn’t like sweets very much. 

Caleb sheepishly hands him the piece of paper in question. “I’ve only just acquired this, but does this mean anything to you?”

A mystery. A puzzle. He _loves_ a puzzle. 

Unfortunately, it’s a puzzle he solves too easily. A quick _dispel magic_ , and the contents of the paper fall tumbling to the floor. “I think I figured it out?” he teases, eyebrow cocked in Caleb’s direction.

Caleb’s face turns a lovely shade of pink, one he tries not to admire too much. “Sometimes the simplest solutions escape us,” he says quietly. “I am in your debt again.”

He nods, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn’t want to say _this one is free_ , because to do so is a weakness. Because having them in his debt is a power no member of Den Thelyss would be foolish enough to ignore. 

Because he may still have to kill them, in the end.

* * *

After he teleports home from the dragon’s den, he sits on the steps outside of his home and eats the cupcake Jester gave him. He gets black moss frosting on his nose, and it is incredibly undignified. If his mother were here--

But she is not. And his friend gave him this cupcake, and while he doesn’t like sweets he does like Jester, and so he eats the entire thing, getting crumbs all over his Shadowhand cloak.

The black moss helps cut the sweetness, although he’s still not a massive fan of the taste he feels a little bit like a child again, making a mess enjoying a treat in spite of it not being a special occasion. 

His birthday was months ago. There was a formal dinner at his den, serving some of his favorites: roasted spider with a dark wine sauce, a rice melody, vegetables. For dessert, his favorite, moonberry pie and unsweetened cream. 

Somehow, this stupid black moss cupcake, which he doesn’t even like, really, tastes better than all of that.

_I will kill you last_ , he thinks of Jester, throwing away the wrapper, and hoping it never comes to that.

* * *

“Cupcakes,” he tells the baker. 

It is...too early in the morning, right now, and the baker looks horrified at his presence in her tiny shop in Rosohna. If he’d been thinking, he would have left the Shadowhand mantle at home. “C-cupcakes, sir?”

“Yes,” he snaps, then sighs. “I apologize. I need a dozen cupcakes, please.”

“What flavor?”

_There’s more than one flavor?_ He thinks, frazzled. Why would there be more than one flavor? Don’t they all taste the same? What the hell would Jester even like? He bites at his lip, and thinks back to a few months ago, when she brought him a gift. “Do you have black moss?” He asks the baker.

The baker’s eyes go wide. “I--I do not, sir. I-I’ve not heard of such a flavor.”

Of course not. That would be too easy. “Then a dozen of whatever you’d recommend. And,” he remembers what Jester said the other day. “Pastries.”

The baker blinks at him. “Pastries, sir?”

“Pastries. For breakfast,” he grinds his teeth. “Whatever pastries you’d eat for breakfast. Some of your best, please.”

He puts gold on the counter--more gold than the whole bakery costs, more than likely. The baker scrambles, and he sighs, rubbing at his forehead.

He’s been a pretty shitty friend these past few days. And Jester did help establish peace between nations, correcting one of his many errors. The least he can do is bring her (hopefully) not shitty pastries while she’s on a boat in the middle of the ocean.

* * *

He does not intend to kill the Scourager.

He acts on instinct: the woman stabs Caleb in the neck, and less than a minute later he has crushed her spine with gravity.

He does, at least, have the piece of mind to look to Caleb before he does. To seek Caleb’s approval before he brings this woman to her death. 

(And why, pray tell, does he need _Caleb’s_ approval? Caleb, who is nothing and no one, a failed Cerberus agent, an Empire dog. He _shouldn’t_ care what Caleb thinks. He shouldn’t.)

(He does.)

The rage within him burns; most of the time, he runs cold. He is a man of practicality and science; patience is one of his virtues. He prides himself on not acting on impulse, of holding on to his even-temper. It’s part of why he makes such a good Shadowhand, after all.

Less than a minute. She stabs Caleb, and he crushes her torso, and he only regrets not moving faster.

It’s breaking protocol, killing her like this. There are things to be done for an execution; painless, humane ways to end the life of a traitor and a spy. 

He did not want her to go painlessly. Not after she stabbed Caleb, at least.

He almost breaks protocol again, and let’s the Mighty Nein speak to the corpse before his senses get the better of him. 

“I want to help you,” he tells them, and means it, genuine in spite of himself.

“You’ve been more than generous,” they tell him, and he feels slightly relieved that they understand that he cannot break every rule in the Dynasty for them.

(Although he has broken so many already. Where is the line, he wonders?)

What he wants to know is this: who gave her the weapon that let her stab Caleb? Because _he_ did not. And if there is another traitor in the Dynasty, then he _needs to know about it._

Was it the Assembly? Was her target always Essek, and she just took the strike at Caleb because he enraged her? Are they trying to get rid of him?

He needs answers. Luckily, he knows where to go to find them.

* * *

Protocol, after a death like this: a Luxon cleric casts _speak with dead_. Representatives from each of the major dens convene and question the body. Then it is put to rest, given whatever honorments might suit such a creature, and forgotten about, like most dead things. 

Normally, Essek has little interests in these things. But his sister is a Luxon cleric, and it takes very little effort on his part to ensure that _she_ is the one questioning this particular body.

“A favor,” he asks of her.

“You’ve been asking for a lot of those lately, I hear,” she tells him. She has their mother’s eyes and judgmental spirit. “Careful you don’t run up a _debt,_ Essek.”

He ignores her. “I need to know who gave her the weapon in the cell,” he speaks plainly, as his sister slides the gloves onto her hands. They are enchanted with divine purpose, he knows, but the important thing is that they keep blood off of fingers. “Who let her chain go slack enough that she could stab someone?”

She rolls her eyes. “Petition Mother if you wish to get your question approved by the Den--”

“You are my _sister_ ,” he argues, although he knows this particular argument is useless. “And you are a master interrogator. If anyone could find this information out, it’s you. Even if you could not ask such a question, I know you have people in your pockets. Resources beyond the things here,” he gestures to the chapel around them. “And I would _owe you_ ,” he emphasizes. “Consider it.”

She hesitates. “If it ever comes up, I’ll let you know.”

“That’s all I ask.”

* * *

It takes her a month. But eventually, Essek gets a note, in his sister’s clean, methodical script, containing a name and nothing else.

But he doesn’t need anything else, really. The name is enough.

_Adeen_.

* * *

“How does it feel?” Beauregard asks him. Across the sea, the prisoners are exchanged, Adeen for Vance, an Empire spy for a Dynasty one. “Seeing him in chains, and not yourself?”

“Freeing,” he says honestly. There are things he regrets in this life of his, but seeing Adeen Tasithar pay the price for his crimes is not one of them.

* * *

Caleb asks for more spells.

Of course he does: he is a brilliant wizard, and he thirsts for knowledge the same way Essek thirsts for knowledge; they are exactly alike in this way, in the way they want and want and want, an endless thirst that knows no end. No, Caleb wanting to learn more spells isn’t surprising to Essek in the least.

The surprise is Jester, who insists on watching them.

He thinks it’s because he insulted her, insulted, well, most of the Nein, the ones who are not Caleb. He hadn’t meant to; he is not always the best when it comes to dealing with people, especially not _these_ people, who are so foreign and interesting, whose den is less a den, formal and poised, and more of a university fraternity, where one disaster awaits and begets another.

So he shows off, a little bit, in part because he enjoys surprising his audience, and in part because he is annoyed by her interruption. 

(But what is she interrupting, really, Essek? A magic lesson with Caleb? A chance to converse with him, alone? _Get over yourself.)_

Caleb doesn’t seem to mind her presence, and so Essek tries not to mind her presence, either. 

He watches as she, delighted by the spell, attempts to climb up the floating chair successfully. It reminds him of when he first learned the spell; he was so _young_ , and Verin--just a baby, then, basically a little kid to his oh-so-wise teenaged self--had been in awe of the spell.

“Make the chair float!” His brother had squealed, and he did. “Do you think I could climb it?”

“Try it and find out,” Essek had teased, watching his brother’s chubby little form scramble up into the chair. 

Jester moves with much more grace than Verin did, pulling the same move now that Verin did back then, so Essek does the same to her as he did to his brother, ages ago.

“The spell lasts about an hour or so,” he tells Caleb with a smile. “Or until you want it to stop.”

He snaps his fingers, and Jester tumbles out of the chair onto her ass, the exact same way Verin did years ago. 

At least Jester has a better sense of humor and laughs about it: Verin had cried, and ran to tattle to their nanny, getting Essek in trouble with a stern lecture on “the proper use of magic, young man.”

He’s not done this sort of thing in a long time; magic, just to do magic and to tease.

Still, he knows Caleb needs stronger magic: something that can help him in a fight, and so he pulls out a spell of his own creation, an Essek Thelyss original, to give to Caleb.

(Not that he tells Caleb he invented the spell. _No one likes a show-off,_ he hears in his mind in his father’s sharp voice.)

“I ask that you be very, very careful, using this spell outside of the Dynasty’s walls,” Essek tells him, opening his spellbook to the correct page. Some of his original notes are still scrawled here, with questions and answers and wonderings written in the margins.

Caleb pauses, however. “Are you putting yourself at risk, by sharing these with me?”

What a _kindness_ , that he even bothers to ask such a question? Was there another soul in Rosohna who would even _think_ such a thing, if Essek offered to teach them something Essek created himself? 

“Maybe,” he answers honestly, because here he is, giving Caleb the tools that may be necessary to one day take him down. “But let this be an extension of my trust in you and your friends. I hope to have the same trust in return.”

“That is fairly established, I think,” Caleb says softly. “We are friends, yeah?”

The term gives him pause.

He--he does not have _friends_. He has acquaintances. Servants. Reluctant and distant family members. He has people he can use.

But _friends?_

He knows what friendship looks like, at least from the outside. He remembers being little, listening to his sister and her friends gossip and giggle, trading secrets for nothing more than the intimate pleasure of sharing with one another. He remembers being older, annoyed at the ruckus his brother and his friends would make rough-housing and laughing while Essek tried to study.

No one’s ever wanted to be Essek’s friend who didn’t _want_ something out of him. He learned that the hard way, years ago.

The same is true now, of course, but he’s older, and he knows how to use such manipulations for his own advantage.

“Friends,” he repeats the word quietly. “I like the sound of that.”

* * *

His throat still burns from where he was hanged to death several hours earlier. Jester is kind enough to heal him, even after already doing the momentous task of undoing his death.

“I can’t believe you did that,” he murmurs, his voice as scratched and raw as his throat. “I can’t believe you brought me back from death.”

Jester’s hands glow white-blue as she touches his throat, relieving his pain. “Of course we brought you back, silly. You’re our _friend_.”

She says that word with such confidence, like it means something more than Essek’s ever known. Still, the impact of their decision to bring him back has consequences: they should know. “The Bright Queen--”

“ _Fuck_ the Bright Queen,” Jester doesn’t let him continue. “Fuck the King, too. You are our _friend_. We weren’t just going to let you stay dead,” she finishes pouring magical energy into his wound, and her hands move down only slightly, from the side of his neck to the point where his clavicle meets his shoulders. “What kind of friends would we be if we didn’t save you, Essek? I’m only sorry you had to die first before we could get you out of there.”

He’s not. Quite frankly, he feels more alive now since he’s died than he’s ever felt before in his life. “You’ve put yourselves in terrible danger because of me--”

“Oh, stop it,” Jester rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t you know we put ourselves in danger every day, no matter what we do? We weren’t ever gonna leave you behind,” she squeezes his shoulders, and he cannot help himself; he starts to cry. “We _love_ you, Essek.”

He falls into her arms, and lets her hold him as he sobs, overwhelmed by the feeling that he is loved, unconditionally, for the first time in his life.

* * *

He gets so, so fucking angry with them.

First, they message him in the middle of the night. Then, they want him to teleport them. Then, to make matters worse, he apparently teleported them to the wrong place, even though he _went_ to the _fucking place_ they pointed on the map.

So, he teleports them, a _second_ time, just a little bit closer, a _waste_ of a seventh level spell slot, and Caleb--

Caleb grabs his arm, and it’s so painfully obviously manipulative that Essek yanks his arm away like he’s been burned, and tells them “There is nothing I would like more than to not be around you people _anymore_.”

He’s so angry he flies away from them, burning yet another spell slot simply to get far enough away to draw a teleportation circle.

He, pointedly, does not cry. _Thelyss_ men do not cry. Thelyss men especially do not cry when the people they are using use them in return.

He stops, and breathes, settling down onto solid ground again. He’s being irrational; he _knows_ he’s being irrational, and he knows it’s because of his job, because of the war, because of the lack of response from his sister about the Scourager woman, because he’s heard nothing back from the Assembly in spite of multiple messages, because there’s a spy somewhere in his area of control and he can’t _find them_ , because--

(“We are friends now, yeah?” He’s never had friends before; he doesn’t know how this _works_.)

\--because it feels like everything is spiraling out of his control, and now this, too?

He breathes in deeply, and tries to settle himself.

( _“Control, Essek,”_ his father’s voice tells him. _“You must learn control, or you will never amount to anything.”)_

_The Mighty Nein did not mean to hurt you,_ he tells himself, as he finds enough calm in himself to start transcribing the transportation circle onto the rock. They are tired, and frustrated, and desperate. You would be, too, if everything you kept trying to do kept failing on you.

His arm still feels warm, from where Caleb touched his arm, earlier.

So he forgives the Mighty Nein, easily, and when he sees them tomorrow, surrounded by guards, he finds it in himself to be humble enough to apologize for his anger and his outbreak.

Then he does not see or hear from them again for a month.

* * *

It is the loneliest month of his life. 

He did not realize how familiar he had gotten with the Mighty Nein until they weren’t around anymore. He did not realize how much he enjoyed sharing spells with Caleb until Caleb was not there to share spells with. He did not realize how much he enjoyed Jester’s little messages, until Jester did not send him any messages. He did not realize how much he enjoyed the craziness of their home--the tree, the lights, the loud _ding-ding-ding_ of their chimes, the ball bearings on the floor--until he was no longer invited in.

He did not realize how cold he was, until the warmth was all gone.

“It’s a good thing they aren’t around anymore,” his mother tells him. It’s another month, another monthly dinner with his Den. He doesn’t feel much like eating, pushing peas around his plate to avoid eating them like he used to do as a young child. He doesn’t bring the Mighty Nein up; that’s all on his mother. “The Empire people. The ones who brought back the Beacon.”

He looks up from his plate with sudden interest. “The Mighty Nein,” he says softly, his voice barely audible. 

“Yes, them,” his mother wipes her mouth with her napkin. “I’m glad they’ve gone away. They were a terrible influence on you, Essek.”

_Yes, perhaps they were,_ he thinks, eyes still staring at his plate. He thinks he can make the peas look a little bit like a dick if he gets the angle right. _Especially as far as you’d be concerned._

“You’ve gotten so much more accomplished since they’ve been away, haven’t you?”

Yes. He’s buried himself in his work, again, the same as he was before he ever met them. Like a dutiful son.

Perhaps they are dead, he thinks woefully, still trying to get the peas on his plate to make the shape he wants. Perhaps that’s for the best. They wouldn’t like _you_ , anyway, if they knew the _real_ you. The person who trades priceless artifacts away for knowledge and starts wars he doesn’t know how to stop because he’s selfish, because he’s never cared about anyone else before now.

Because he’s not sure why he cares about _them_ , now.

The next day, a dignitary from Tal’dorei arrives with information, and Essek swears for the first time that he could feel the sunlight, and it didn’t burn.

* * *

It’s foolish, to love something small. It’s foolish to love something you know you are going to outlive.

Essek knows this, and he travels with the Mighty Nein anyway.

He loves them. He’s a fool for loving them, because he will outlive all of them and all he is doing is prolonging the pain he will eventually feel when they die, but he loves them anyway. He loves them enough to let Jester put flowers in his hair, even though his hair is hardly long enough to braid. He loves them enough that he will spend hours arguing and debating over maps with Fjord, trying to plan their next move. He loves them enough that he will levitate Veth just high enough to be taller than Fjord, because he knows it delights her when she can annoy the green one. He loves them enough to get drunk with Beau and talk about their shitty families, their terrible fathers and absentee mothers and little brothers who might turn out okay by the end. He loves them enough to drink tea with Caduceus and help him garden, because he’s always liked plants even if he doesn’t quite understand them. He loves them enough that he stops and picks flowers for Yasha, even if he doesn’t quite know why she loves them so.

He loves them enough that he’s able to travel with Caleb, to fight alongside him and do everything in his power to protect him, even though Caleb doesn’t love him back.

He knew Caleb didn’t love him when he confessed his feelings. Still, the lack of acknowledgment is strange, sometimes; Caleb never mentions it, at least. Sometimes, they will share knowing looks, or their hands will brush against one another’s and Essek will think--but nothing ever comes of it. It’s a thing they don’t talk about, and if they don’t talk about it for long enough, it will go away eventually, these feelings of his that Caleb doesn’t return. He's content enough that Caleb is his friend, that Caleb has not cut him out his life. It is enough, just being able to exist in the same space as Caleb.

Still, he loves them all anyway, in spite of everything.

He loves them, even when they are at their worst, too. When Yasha is so quiet and full of rage and won’t say anything at all, ever. When Beau gets preachy and self-righteous and holier-than-thou-art, like she’s never made mistakes, before. Loves them even when Caduceus doesn’t make _any_ goddamn sense when he talks, sometimes. Loves them when Veth tries to smother him. Loves Fjord when he impulsively sets off a trap and a dragon comes flying after them. Loves Jester even when she sings, loudly and off-key, in the morning.

He loves Caleb all the time--

(“The difference between you and I is thinner than a razor,” Caleb told him, once. “It’s like looking into a mirror,” and what does it say about Essek, that he can love his reflection so completely?)

\--even when Caleb snores. When he’s grumpy in the morning. When he repeats what hour it is, even though they’ve been traveling for miles and they all _can tell time, Caleb!_ Loves him when he’s selfish and when he’s greedy and when he’s holding a grudge like no one’s business.

He thinks, and it feels a little bit like blasphemy, that his mother has been wrong his entire life.

Life is _about_ loving the small things. Cupcakes shared with your best friend. The feeling of the grass beneath your bare feet. The sight of a sunrise you didn’t know you’d live to see. 

You love something _because_ you are going to outlive it, not _in spite_ of it. Otherwise, all you are ever going to feel is the cold, and that’s not living. That’s _existing_.

He knows, because before he met these people, that’s all he did: exist. He did not _live_.

He is living now, and it feels _amazing._

* * *

He stands nervously, a bottle of wine in his hands, staring at the front door of the home of the Mighty Nein, too afraid to knock on it.

_We realized we don’t know anything about you, Essek!_ Jester had messaged him. _You should come to dinner!_

There is nothing _to_ know about me, he thought in response. Nothing interesting, at least. The only things that were interesting about him were secrets, and lies, and he’s not interested in sharing those things, thank you.

He’s never been invited to a friend’s house before. For dinner and conversation. He’s brought wine.

\--This is a stupid idea. He should go home, and save himself the embarrassment. Or worse than embarrassment: the terrifying idea that someone might discover his treason, and then that will be the end of him.

But his tower will be _cold_ , he thinks, gripping the wine bottle, unwilling to turn around just yet. The food he has will be tasteless. The walls will be stone gray and bland, and his tower completely silent. 

Inside the Xhorhaus, it will be warm, he thinks. It has to be: there are so many bodies in there. There is art and life and color on the walls, and it is _never_ quiet, and while he’s never actually tried any of the Nein’s cooking he cannot imagine it would ever be bland or tasteless.

(“You’ve accomplished so much, since they’ve been gone--”)

But he doesn’t _want_ to accomplish anything right now. He’s almost 120 years old, and he’s never had a friend invite him over for dinner before, and he wants--he _wants_ \--

He knocks on the door before he can stop himself. 

* * *

It’s foolish, to love something you are going to outlive. Especially since life never comes with such guarantees pre-written.

The plan he has right now is stupid. Brave, yes, very brave, but incredibly stupid. 

But he doesn’t see another option, right now. Not one that lets all of his friends escape and live, at least, and that’s the ideal outcome right there, as far as Essek is concerned. He should know. He’s done the math, calculated his options. Weighed spell against spell, option versus option, and he knows which one lets Caleb, Beau, and Jester walk away from this, and which option doesn’t. He knows which bet he prefers. 

_“No_ ,” Caleb tells him, horrified expression on his face as he calculates the math, same as Essek, moments ago. Clever boy. A bit slow, sometimes, but clever. Essek loves him still, in spite of the time he's spent trying not to.

“You still have the Beacon we stole from the Assembly?” Essek asks Jester, hair and blood in his eyes. His hair hasn’t been this long in years, but no one else in the Mighty Nein cuts their hair, so he doesn’t cut his, either, even if it is getting shaggy in the time he’s spent with them.

Jester blinks at him, tears in her eyes. She’s doing the math, too. She’s so much smarter than anyone gives her credit for. “We’ll bring you back,” she says, her voice cracking. “We have diamonds. We don’t need the Beacon.”

No, of course not, he smiles at her, blood in his teeth. But resurrection rituals are tricky. Coming back once is one thing, but he knows it’s harder to bring someone back, each time they die.

He’s already died once. There is no guarantee they’ll be able to bring him back a second time.

“It’s good to have options,” he says to her, breathing deeply.

Beau punches him, and wraps him in a tight hug before he can react. “Think you can do it?” She asks him, arms around his neck.

There was a time when Beau wouldn’t have touched him, he thinks, and squeezes her back just as tight. “Think so. It’s a gravity spell, and that’s something of my specialty, you know. I should be able to handle it.”

Jester is crying now, and she hugs him, too, and Essek is a little glad their group is split like this right now, because he’s not sure he could handle this, if it was everyone. “You’ve got to come back, Essek,” she cries, big fat tears that run down her face, and squeezes him so tightly it’s a wonder his bones don’t break. “ _Please_ come back to us.”

“I’ll try,” he tells her, letting her go gently.

He does not expect Caleb to grab his face, and kiss him roughly.

It’s not a soft kiss; it’s not a gentle goodbye. It’s a command, a declaration, a wish; it’s anger and rage and heartbreak in one sweeping motion.

_Clever boy_ , he thinks, deepening the kiss. _A bit slow, sometimes._

He loves him, anyway.

“Come back to _me_ ,” Caleb says, anger and desperation and love pouring out of his voice, and he holds on to Essek’s face tightly.

A kiss is such a small thing, he thinks. It’s foolish to love something so small. Isn’t it strange, to be so grown now, to be given the thing you wanted for so long, and have it mean so much _more_ to you, now, than you ever thought possible?

_I will_ , Essek thinks, diamonds and beacons both in Jester’s backpack nearby. He will come back to Caleb, one way, or another: _I will._

  
  
  
  



End file.
